Manage Grades: Items & Categories

The Manage Grades tab provides the best look at a course site’s overall grading breakdown and includes options for creating new Grade Items and Categories, and adjusting or removing existing ones.

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The Manage Grades tab at the top of the Grades page.

Grade management and More Actions

Grade Items and Categories can be created through the New option, while More Actions provides further options which includes the import tools Reorder and Delete.

 

Each Item or Category can be edited via its dropdown menu [2], and multiple items can be selected on the left and then altered through Bulk Edit [1].

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The Manage Grades screen displays any associated assessment items [3] (which can be linked when editing the assessment tool itself) along with the point values [4] (which will include a Weight if the Weighted option has been enabled in Settings).

What is a Grade Item?

An Item is a single evaluated component as it appears in Grades. A single Item appears as a column in the Enter Grades screen.

A Grade Item can be associated with to a Brightspace Assignment, Quiz, or Discussion, but can standalone for manual grade entry. An associated Item can automatically pass evaluated scores and feedback from an assessed student submission to the Grades page.

What is a Grade Category?

A Category contains multiple Grade Items for the purpose of applying additional calculations (although it can serve simply as a structural aid).

Creating a New Grade Category

1. Go the to Manage Grades tab in the Grades tool.

2. Select New.

3. From the drop-down menu, choose New Category.

4. Specify the desired details of the new grade category.

5. Set any specific restrictions:

   • Hide from users: Hide restrictions from learners.

   • Has Start Date: Set a Start Date for the grade category.

   • Has End Date: Set an End Date for the grade category.

   • Display In Calendar: Display Start and End Dates in the course Calendar.

   • Release Conditions: You can Attach Existing conditions or Create and Attach conditions.

6. Select Save and Close if finished, or Save and New to continue making another new category.

Creating a Category

1. In Manage Grades, click “New” and select Category.

2. Fill in the mandatory fields, like the category name.

3. Assign a weight to the category. For example, the category of “Midterms” could be 50%.

4. Decide how to distribute weight across all items in the category. For example, when distributing points evenly across all items, “Midterm 1” would be 50% of the category, and “Midterm 2” would be another 50%, to total 100% for that category.

5. Select the display options you wish students to see.

6. Once you are satisfied, click “Save and Close”

Adding Items to a Category

When creating a new item, under the Properties tab use the drop-down under Category to choose which category that item will belong to. Remember to click Save or Save and Close when finished.

If adding an existing item, click the chevron beside the item you want to move to a category and click Edit. Then under the Properties tab use the drop-down under Category to choose which category that item will belong to. Remember to click Save or Save and Close when finished.

Creating a New Grade Item

1. Go the to Manage Grades tab in the Grades tool.

2. Select New.

3. From the drop-down menu, choose New Item.

4. On the New Item page, choose a Grade Item Type from the following:

   • Numeric: Grade users by assigning a value out of a specified total number of points.

   • Selectbox: Grade users by selecting the grade scheme level that best matches their achievement. Selectbox type grade items cannot be created until at least one org unit grade scheme has been created.

   • Pass/Fail: Grade users using a simple pass or fail grade scheme.

   • Formula: Automatically grade users using a custom formula based on their achievement for other grade items.

   • Calculated: Calculate users' cumulative achievement across multiple grade items.

   • Text: Provide comments in the grade book that are not calculated in the final grade.

5. In the Properties tab, enter the details for your grade item.

6. In the Restrictions tab, enter the following information:

   • Hide from users: Hide restrictions from learners.

   • Has Start Date: Set a Start Date for the grade item.

   • Has End Date: Set an End Date for the grade item.

   • Display In Calendar: Display Start and End Dates in the course Calendar.

   • Release Conditions: You can Attach Existing conditions or Create and Attach conditions.

7. In the Objectives tab, click Associate Learning Objectives to add learning objectives to the grade item.

8. Click Save and Close.

Creating an Item

1. In Manage Grades, click “New” and select Item.

2. Choose what type of grade item this will be from the list of options (i.e. Numeric, Select Box, etc.)

3. Fill in the mandatory fields, including the name, point value and weight.

4. You can associate the grade item to a grade category. For example, if the grade item is “Midterm 1”, and you have already set up a category called “Midterms”, you can associate it with the category

   1. (image)

5. Assign a weight to the category. For example, the category of “Midterms” could be 50%. Note: If you are associating the item to a category, the weight will automatically populate itself.

6. You have the option of choosing whether a grade item can exceed the point value allotted, or is a bonus item. For more on that topic, please click here (INSERT LINK)

7. You have the option to add a rubric and to modify the display options you wish students to see.

8. Once you are satisfied, click “Save and Close”

You can set up grade items that are not associated with Brightspace tools (online assignment, quizzes, etc.) just as you did in Sakai.

Note that you can place Items inside of Categories, which can help organize things but also does open the door for more involved calculations and weighting options (although you can add weighing to an individual Item in Brightspace).

You probably want the Numeric item type, although you may see that the other choices offer interesting options.

Each Item needs a name and provides several other options that are also worth looking at, although in this case I reckon the defaults are providing what you want for a manual entry item.

If you do have an overall weighting system applied (instructions below), you can set the Points and then Weight separately (e.g. grade it out of 100 points but have it worth 20% of the course total):

Once saved, the Item will appear as a column on the main Grades page. Use its dropdown menu to find the Enter Grades option, which will take you to a page where you can enter the scores and provide feedback.

Associating an Assessment with an Item

Assessments like quizzes and assignments cannot be linked from the Grades area. Although the instructor can create a grade item for this assessment, it must be linked from the assessment itself (ie. by editing the assignment) with the exception of Rubrics. Read more about associating a grade to an Assignment, Quiz, or Discussion.

Rubrics with existing/new grade item

Rubrics can only be associated with grade items through grade item properties. Grade Items cannot be created from the Rubrics tool.

1. Go the to Manage Grades tab in the Grades tool.

2. Select New.

3. From the drop-down menu, choose New Item.

4. On the New Item page, choose a Grade Item Type.

5. On the Properties tab scroll down to Rubrics.

   • Add an existing rubric.

   • Create a new rubric in a pop-up window to then attach.

6. Click Add selected once the desired rubric is chosen.

7. Save and Close.